


Hearth and Home

by Rosage



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Family, Other, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 12:37:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15534402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosage/pseuds/Rosage
Summary: Asra is confronted with his past, or what it might have been with a family of former pirates.





	Hearth and Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off of Heart Hunter dialogue and includes an altered version of some. It could be read as a follow-up to Catch and Hold, but it should stand alone fine.

The sailors leave their ship in a cove and gather at the farthest edges of the docks, where the water foams over rocky beach. Dusk hasn’t descended, but the pink rim along the sea warns that anyone without a place to sleep had better start searching. Far from the forest, Asra thinks of the bed in his dear friend’s shop, the one at Ilya’s place, Nadia’s countless guest rooms...

Mazelinka’s voice brings him back to the docks as she wards off Ilya’s fussing. Her crate of supplies balances easily on her hip, and Ilya would no doubt fall into the water if he added it to his pile. With his own load, Asra follows them up to the recipients, a motley lot that resembles the Rowdy Raven’s patrons without their land legs.

Those with the best balance greet them. Ilya spares Asra the need to reply by calling names, slapping shoulders, asking after old haunts. Asra tries not to memorize any of it. The crew is receiving aid from them rather than an inland clinic for a reason, and it’s easiest not to answer questions when you really don’t know.

Mazelinka passes out bottled remedies that Asra helped her brew, including some to stave off scurvy. She speaks as familiarly to them as Ilya does, though with more tartness and less schmoozing. They receive it as positively.

“Nobody can ignore the sea’s call forever, least of all Three-saber Mazelinka,” one woman says with a grin that would be toothy if she had a full set.

“My feet are staying on land, and my feet on my legs. If you’ve any sense, you’ll join me.”

The woman only laughs. Raising his eyebrows at Mazelinka with amusement, Asra mouths _Three-saber_. She winks at him in a way that suggests he’ll get that story later.

Malak circles overhead, his warning caws quieting when he swoops down to preen in front of a parrot. The parrot ignores him. Asra smiles. A glimpse of the beach carries away his mirth as quickly as a wave receding from the shore.

Quietly he assists Ilya. Later Ilya will no doubt rant about the limitations of modern medicine, of his supplies. For now he speaks with an easy authority as he examines wounds and sets fractured limbs. He tells stories to those who require the most treatment, and the sailors bring news of other ports. After a while Asra tunes out the conversation.

Without thinking, he runs his fingers over patients’ cuts and bruises, revealing clear skin that they stare at with a mix of awe and distrust. Someone asks him for a weather reading of which he gives the basics. Others come to him for help with sailors’ superstitions that he can only attempt to cater to on the fly. If he were somewhere else, he might have shown off. As it is, his presence causes a ripple in the crowd that makes him avert his eyes. Still, they keep him too busy to go into a trance, to escape.

Conflicting emotions cross Ilya’s face as he watches Asra heal. When he gets the chance, he bends to speak in Asra’s ear, though he doesn’t whisper. “That, that doesn’t hurt you?”

Asra holds out his hands, turning them over to show the unbroken skin. “There’s a limit to how much you can do without giving anything up.” As if to demonstrate, someone limps over on a leg that’s halfway to becoming a peg, and Asra stares helplessly as Ilya takes charge.

A chance to slip away arises, and Asra takes it, sitting with his legs dangling off the edge of the dock. By now the sea has eaten the sun, and along with it the brilliant colors that had bled into the water. Asra intends to slip into a space as hazy as the horizon, at the very least to ask Faust how their friends at the palace are doing, but before he can he hears scrabbling nearby. The air is as redolent with tension as with salt.

He lifts his feet onto the dock and digs through his bag. It’s mostly filled with supplies for the mission, but he finds a serving of pumpkin bread, not enough food to avert a fight over it. He leaves it anyway before returning to the others.

* * *

Asra doesn’t recall the journey back to Mazelinka’s. He only knows that at some point he slipped his hand into Ilya’s and received a solid enough grip to arrive together without incident. He holds on until he crouches in front of the fireplace, silently asking flames to lick the pot.

The sound of Mazelinka chopping ingredients summons him to the counter. “I’m a pretty good cook, you know,” he says, poking his nose over her shoulder. The plants on her windowsill wiggle with interest. His fingers wiggle back.

“I’m sure you are, and if I’m ever your guest, I’ll be glad to try your food.” Recognizing the dismissal, he pads away from her territory over to the table, where Ilya is already drumming his fingers. Asra can almost see his mind whirring to find some way to contribute without touching the kitchen. Even without turning, Mazelinka must, too, as she sends them both out to feed the chickens. Ilya leaps to his feet.

“Ah, no need to get up, Asra, I can take care of it.”

Mazelinka gestures him over to whisper in his ear. Asra pretends not to notice, but it stirs something in him, the both of them framed by the light of the crackling fire. That something continues to twist when Mazelinka returns to her chopping, and Ilya shows him outside.

It feels more natural to toss grain and watch the chickens run to it, their heads bobbing. The sight is almost enough for him to imagine he’s with Muriel in the woods.

“Ridiculous little creatures, aren’t they?” Ilya says. “They seem to like you.”

“That _is_ ridiculous.” Asra smiles to highlight the joke, but it’s empty, his thoughts still elsewhere. He says little while Ilya recounts stories about the pirates.

“You’ll have to ask Mazelinka for the best stories. She’s in all of them.” Another smile from Asra, warmer this time. Ilya shifts his boot back from a particularly aggressive chicken. “So you’re, ah, quiet. Quieter than usual.”

“Don’t you talk enough for both of us?”

“I’ve been trying not to. Not to be too much.” Ilya’s arms cross his chest. “You know, that lot was rough around the edges, but I wouldn’t have brought you to a really dangerous group of sea dogs. And we knew most of them. You were—you were safe with us.”

Whatever has twisted inside Asra tightens until he can barely breathe. He kneels in the dirt and holds out a handful of grain, drawing the chickens around him. “That’s not it,” he says. “I used to live there. Near the docks.”

“Near the docks? There’s nowhere to—”

Ilya’s mind seems to catch up to his mouth. Asra braces himself for questions, or some speech, but Ilya only joins him on the ground and wraps an arm around his shoulders.

“I’m glad you’re here now, Asra.”

Asra breathes until he feels himself unwind. He turns into Ilya’s neck, nose pressed against the warm skin, and out of the corner of his eye he spies the glow of the light in Mazelinka’s window.

“Me, too.”


End file.
